Distinguished

I don't think Intel is going to do too well with these. Requiring a new socket/chipset and releasing yet ANOTHER 14nm iteration chip is the wrong move when you're back on your heels after a very strong AMD release.

Honorable

Better than before but the question is will it be enough for Zen 3? It'll probably convince some who are upgrading but anyone who has an AM4 chipset isn't going to be impressed. An i7 + new mobo = 400$ while just waiting for r5-4600 = 200$. Also overclocking is still locked to K series chips. The fact that Intel still has enough hubris to continue artificially segmenting products to this degree makes me sad.

Champion

250w for STOCK speeds!!! so prob breaking 300w with any type of overclocking. even the i3 was 182w peak at stock speeds. gonna need water-cooling for an i3 at this point.

the fx series when it got this bad would only run on a select few motherboards that could handle the power draw. the intel fanboys threw around terms like space heater and many others to describe how crazy these power levels are. so new socket, expensive mobo to deliver the power, water cooling just to run at stock speeds and this is a big fat NOPE for me.

something tells me though that these new chips will get a good spin from the fan boys. i mean come on who doesn't need an extra space heater in the basement. that's a heck of a value feature from intel........blah blah blah

i don't think i'd use air for anything above the i3 and then i'd consider a small AIO instead. once you approach 200w, then air just becomes too little too late. it'll throttle continuously and not perform at even stock levels on air.

Senior GPU Editor

Better than before but the question is will it be enough for Zen 3? It'll probably convince some who are upgrading but anyone who has an AM4 chipset isn't going to be impressed. An i7 + new mobo = 400$ while just waiting for r5-4600 = 200$. Also overclocking is still locked to K series chips. The fact that Intel still has enough hubris to continue artificially segmenting products to this degree makes me sad.

Intel is basically in the same place AMD was in with the Bulldozer series of CPUs: it has to release something new. Of course, Intel is also about 10X the size/profitability of AMD. And so we get a power increase, slightly higher performance, same old architecture with a few minor tweaks and two more cores.

Anyway, yeah, I don't think Comet Lake is going to be a massive leap forward. It feels a lot like the Broadwell launch of 2015: too little, too late. What's really shocking is that Intel also has Rocket Lake coming presumably next year. That will also be 14nm+++ but will use the new Golden Cove cores, maybe integrated Xe Graphics as well? But still on 14nm, man... I don't know what to think.

AMD via TSMC has had equivalent process tech since mid-2019, and Apple launched 7nm chips via TSMC in 2018. And Intel still has plans for a 14nm desktop high performance part in 2021? I guess that's the chip that will really go away quickly, once we get Ice Lake or Tiger Lake or whatever (10nm) on desktop.

If AMD can make Zen 3 scale to higher frequencies (5GHz+) and improve IPC a bit more relative to Zen 2, it should finally manage to win every single meaningful comparison against Intel. Right now, AMD wins on cores and power and efficiency, it's close on IPC, but it clocks about 400-800MHz slower. All-core 5-5.1GHz overclocks on Intel are easy enough, and even 'stock' is 4.7GHz all-core. AMD all-core overclocks are more like 4.2-4.3GHz, and stock is only 100MHz lower. So, bump up those clocks for AMD and it can close the last remaining gap.

Senior GPU Editor

i don't think i'd use air for anything above the i3 and then i'd consider a small AIO instead. once you approach 200w, then air just becomes too little too late. it'll throttle continuously and not perform at even stock levels on air.

A good air cooler technically shouldn't be much worse than a good AIO. One just makes it much easier to use a lot of fans and a big radiator. But dual 140mm fans on an air cooler should be pretty close to a 280mm radiator with an AIO -- and you don't have to deal with pumps. My biggest complaint about large air coolers is that they're a pain -- they block RAM slots, and some are so large that they won't fit on many boards.

Also, be wary of inexpensive AIOs. I've had multiple AIOs from Enermax fail, for example. Also a couple of previous gen Corsair models stopped cooling properly, and I don't know why -- H115i, and the pump and fans still work but it can't even cope with an i7-8700K (hits 90C+ at stock), never mind faster chips. NZXT is my go-to AIO now, but they're a lot more expensive than some of the other options.

Distinguished

i don't think i'd use air for anything above the i3 and then i'd consider a small AIO instead. once you approach 200w, then air just becomes too little too late. it'll throttle continuously and not perform at even stock levels on air.

I disagree.
I've seen the reviews that don't show AIOs in a good light and some of them don't test properly (e.g. they don't turn the pump up to 'performance' - a few degrees temp gain with no audible increase if the case has ANY fans). I can only go by my direct experience and 'good' AIOs, like my H80i V2, are at least a match for the high end Noctuas. One of the problems is that more and more AIOs have entered the playing field in the last 3-5 years and, just like crappy air coolers, many of them are also crappy.

Commendable

I noticed in this article all your price per cores are slightly wrong for intel. Why? You're not using the KF prices when KF models exist. The i7-10700kf has a per thread cost of 21$ the i7-10700k has a per thread cost of 24$ the comparable ryzen 3800X doesn't have integrated graphics and has a per thread cost of 25$

Only ryzen G chips have integrated graphics. Integrated graphics might not be an important feature to anyone. However when comparing per thread costs between ryzen and intel cpu's if a model has a KF variant it's only fair to use the pricing on the KF variant for the comparison.

Champion

A good air cooler technically shouldn't be much worse than a good AIO. One just makes it much easier to use a lot of fans and a big radiator. But dual 140mm fans on an air cooler should be pretty close to a 280mm radiator with an AIO -- and you don't have to deal with pumps. My biggest complaint about large air coolers is that they're a pain -- they block RAM slots, and some are so large that they won't fit on many boards.

Also, be wary of inexpensive AIOs. I've had multiple AIOs from Enermax fail, for example. Also a couple of previous gen Corsair models stopped cooling properly, and I don't know why -- H115i, and the pump and fans still work but it can't even cope with an i7-8700K (hits 90C+ at stock), never mind faster chips. NZXT is my go-to AIO now, but they're a lot more expensive than some of the other options.

i'd agree with this. the high end air coolers do a ton of work but they are so large and can block other areas as you noted. guess i should have clarified what i meant by AIO. i was thinking 240mm from a decent brand so it will last. def not a $60 no name unit no one's ever heard of.

but either way this is still a big negative for the cpu's since they don't come with cooler worth anything or at all. expensive high end mobo, better than average cooling whether air or water, and we're back to exactly what was talked about with the bulldozer cpu's. any "value" pricing is quickly negated with all the extras you need just to make a complete system usuable.

i do hope whenever these chips are reviewd they get the time to run tests with various cooling options. this way we can see what exactly you lose, if anything, by running budget coolers or high end ones and so on. obviously the chip won't boost as high for as long with budget cooling, but what effect does it actually have on real world day to day performance?? you know the stuff we like to argue about in the comments after reading the review

Titan

I don't think Intel is going to do too well with these. Requiring a new socket/chipset and releasing yet ANOTHER 14nm iteration chip is the wrong move when you're back on your heels after a very strong AMD release.

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of motherboards get buried with the first CPU that lands in their socket. Intel has been changing sockets or at least breaking compatibility every other year for 20+ years. It has never been a remotely meaningful issue before, I seriously doubt it'll become a remotely meaningful issue now or ever.

Personally, I'd rather have a fresh platform that has been updated specifically to better accommodate new CPUs with updated specs than a platform that got its ass tweaked out of it to shoehorn chips that had completely unknown characteristics at the time the boards and socket were designed. I'm not a fan of how each new Ryzen launch becomes a mess of compatible and not compatible out-of-box motherboards with every launch either.

Either buy a new board and enjoy the latest and greatest features without worrying about BIOS issues or keep your old board with old features and potentially minor BIOS bugs. You can do both with AM4. You can only do the former with intel. The AM4 platform is undoubtedly better in terms of upgrade-ability and platform longevity.

Titan

You have two choices with Ryzen, either buy a new board and enjoy the latest and greatest features without worrying about BIOS issues or keep your old board with old features and potentially minor BIOS bugs.

The point of worrying about "out-of-box" compatibility is for people building new, which means no pre-existing board or CPU to fall back on. It has to work out-of-box.

As for "platform longevity", as I wrote earlier, most people won't ever upgrade whatever they put in first. I wouldn't be surprised if AMD reduced its commitment to AM5 to only 2-3 years to spare itself some of the headaches from having to make completely different chip packaging compatible with an old socket pinout not designed for it. AMD said that making chipelts work on AM4 was challenging and I bet it'll have more socket-related issues when it goes with silicon-on-silicon or whatever other 2.5D tech later that will make it wish for a clean slate again. I'd be very much interested in knowing what sorts of compromises AMD had to make to shoehorn chiplets on AM4, we may find out when the AM5 specs get released.

That's definitely not true in the enthusiast market. I have an Ryzen 5 3600 system with a B450 MAX board. I will definitely upgrade once AMD releases a 12 core, 65W TDP part. I know many that had upgraded their 1600/2600/1700s to the 3900X as they were careful in the motherboard buying decision.

Being limited to motherboards with CPU-less BIOS update capability sucks. It also means having to pay extra for a capability that is hardly ever used more than once in the board's lifetime. Wouldn't have had that problem if AMD launched the B550 in a timely manner instead of almost a year late.

Enthusiasts are something in the neighborhood of 5% of the total PC market. The bulk of PCs in the world are in businesses, organizations, schools, etc. who toss the whole thing out every 3-5 years to minimize the amount of time wasted on out-of-warranty component troubleshooting and related downtime.

Splendid

It also means having to pay extra for a capability that is hardly ever used more than once in the board's lifetime. Wouldn't have had that problem if AMD launched the B550 in a timely manner instead of almost a year late.

You don't pay extra. They come for free. My cheapo B450 Gaming Plus Max has that feature. What exactly does B550 bring if it was launched before Ryzen 3000? Decent $100 boards that supports PCI-E 4.0? That's nice, but you can still save that $100 if you have a good B350/B450/X370/X470 at your disposal already. That's a choice only possible in the AM4 platform. On the contrary, if you have a Z270/Z370/Z390 board you are limited to the 9900K no matter what unless you want to toss that board.

Enthusiasts are something in the neighborhood of 5% of the total PC market. The bulk of PCs in the world are in businesses, organizations, schools, etc. who toss the whole thing out every 3-5 years to minimize the amount of time wasted on out-of-warranty component troubleshooting and related downtime.

Why are we suddenly talking about the general population? All of us are enthusiasts here, the general population doesn't even care they're using Intel or AMD. Let alone extremely specific bits like this. It doesn't change the fact that AM4 is far superior in this regard.

Champion

Intel is basically in the same place AMD was in with the Bulldozer series of CPUs: it has to release something new. Of course, Intel is also about 10X the size/profitability of AMD. And so we get a power increase, slightly higher performance, same old architecture with a few minor tweaks and two more cores.

Anyway, yeah, I don't think Comet Lake is going to be a massive leap forward. It feels a lot like the Broadwell launch of 2015: too little, too late. What's really shocking is that Intel also has Rocket Lake coming presumably next year. That will also be 14nm+++ but will use the new Golden Cove cores, maybe integrated Xe Graphics as well? But still on 14nm, man... I don't know what to think.

AMD via TSMC has had equivalent process tech since mid-2019, and Apple launched 7nm chips via TSMC in 2018. And Intel still has plans for a 14nm desktop high performance part in 2021? I guess that's the chip that will really go away quickly, once we get Ice Lake or Tiger Lake or whatever (10nm) on desktop.

If AMD can make Zen 3 scale to higher frequencies (5GHz+) and improve IPC a bit more relative to Zen 2, it should finally manage to win every single meaningful comparison against Intel. Right now, AMD wins on cores and power and efficiency, it's close on IPC, but it clocks about 400-800MHz slower. All-core 5-5.1GHz overclocks on Intel are easy enough, and even 'stock' is 4.7GHz all-core. AMD all-core overclocks are more like 4.2-4.3GHz, and stock is only 100MHz lower. So, bump up those clocks for AMD and it can close the last remaining gap.

I think AMD will still have issues with clock speed that are somewhat out of their control. Mainly due to the process tech. I really think that the process tech is more of a limiting factor than the uArch.

I may be wrong but that's my thoughts on it.

I also still feel like Intel will paper launch 10nm on desktop and move quickly to 7nm. There is almost no reason to push 10nm to desktop as its not the highest margin market, HPC and servers on the other hand can be vastly profitable.

Honorable

The price for the i7 10700KF actually makes a good counter to the 3700X/3800X. If I was building a gaming PC from scratch today it'd be the best choice for a pairing with a 2080 Ti at 1440p high refresh rate. However, with X570 offering up to 16 cores today and better efficiency plus those upgrading are forced to buy yet another motherboard while not gaining PCIe 4.0 support makes this another lacklustre release.

Distinguished

The price for the i7 10700KF actually makes a good counter to the 3700X/3800X. If I was building a gaming PC from scratch today it'd be the best choice for a pairing with a 2080 Ti at 1440p high refresh rate. However, with X570 offering up to 16 cores today and better efficiency plus those upgrading are forced to buy yet another motherboard while not gaining PCIe 4.0 support makes this another lacklustre release.

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